Gulf Partnership News Magazine

GROUP(ER) EFFORT

by Hoyt Childers

Boat owner Jack Golden stood dockside in early afternoon at Madeira Beach (Fla.) Seafood and watched the crew unloading his longline vessel, Blackjack I.

Skipper Herman Ellis had docked Blackjack I about noon with a hold full of red grouper and gag. Two things were prominent in Golden's thoughts as he watched. The first was the pending approval of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council's reef fish amendment 30B, comprising strict quotas for gag that could pretty much wipe out what's left of the gulf grouper fishery. Jack Golden dockside with his boat BlackJack I "If they pass that 45 percent reduction, we're done," Golden said. "The fish houses can't survive." But the other, a seminal meeting of commercial, charter and recreational fishing leaders at a local restaurant later the same day, could change everything, he said.

"I think it's the best thing that ever happened," he said. "This could be a big thing. It's the only way we are going to survive."

That evening, May 29, Dennis O'Hern, executive director of the Fishing Rights Alliance, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based recreational fishing advocacyorganization that little more than a year before had been at war with the longline fleet, unloading red grouper in Madeira Beach looked out over the crowd of about 75 leaders and opinion makers from the commercial and recreational fishing communities and said virtually the same thing. "This gives me hope."

The occasion that brought together this surprising group of former adversaries was the official launch of the Gulf Partnership for Marine Fisheries, an alliance formed — as described in the group's introductory brochure — "to support the recreational and commercial fishing community and fishery dependent businesses."

Fishermen in attendance were enthusiastic and eager to talk.

Golden, who had by now arrived to lend his support, repeated what he'd said on the dock earlier in the day. "I think this is the best thing we've ever seen," he said.

Martin Fisher, owner of Rising Sun Fisheries in Madeira Beach, saw in the alliance the possibility of a brighter future. "I've never seen anything like this," he said. "I'm for us being able to fish 10 years from now; that's what I'm about."

Walter Keithly, a researcher at Louisiana State University who has agreed to help advise the group, said the gathering was unique in his experience. "It's a first," he said. "It's nice to see common cause, coming together to generate data for the science process. I would do anything I can to help out with the process."

Almost everyone I spoke with said the same thing. The alliance gave them hope. It was something none of them had experienced before, certainly not in Florida.

"Neither has NMFS," O'Hern said in an interview. "And my, does it drop some jaws."

One of the goals of the organization is to generate credible review of federal fisheries science, said both O'Hern and co-founder Bob Spaeth, owner of Madeira Beach Seafood and executive director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association.

They are trying to put together an advisory group of academics and scientists, such as Keithly, who command respect outside the marine fishing community.

Among those who have agreed to provide guidance in an unofficial capacity are Keithly and Bill Hogarth, former director of NMFS and now dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida.

Hogarth said he hopes stakeholders and officials can cooperate to solve the problems of fisheries management, and he is glad to aid that process. "I think if we all channel our resources, it will be a way of trying to find an answer," he said during a later telephone interview. "I'm hoping we can work out the problems."

To lead the initial scientific review effort, the partnership has hired Canadian marine biologist Trevor Kenchington, who has an extensive research background in U.S. fisheries.

Spaeth said he's seeking outside advisers "so we don't get named as some rogue organization. We've got to play big or not play at all."

Kenchington's first job was to review the most recent gag stock assessment on which the pending Amendment 30B, with its potentially ruinous quota cuts, is based. Kenchington found what he considered serious flaws in the 2006 gag stock assessment and earlier this year convinced the gulf council's reef fish advisory panel that gag are not at risk.

The panel recommended that the full council not tighten gag rules. But when the council's scientific and statistical committee met just before the launch of the partnership, members who supported Kenchington's view were in the minority. "The committee decided to just blow it all off," Kenchington said. "It was a dispiriting week for us." Spaeth said the same thing. "It was a disappointing meeting," he said. "They ignored a lot of data."

The proposed gag cuts could - at worst - lead to an early shutdown of the entire shallow water grouper fishery for commercial fishermen and bring ruinous losses to the charter fleet and other businesses dependent on recreational and commercial fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The domino effect of a gag shutdown would be huge. But if this scenario is a big problem for fishermen, it is also a serious political problem for NMFS. Its stock assessment credibility is thin indeed at recreational marinas and commercial docks all over Florida.

Few fishermen at the meeting, if any, believed the gag assessment that shows the fishery in trouble. The science doesn't keep up with the reality on the water, said Fisher, of Rising Sun Fisheries. "About the time Amendment 30B goes into effect, we're going to be overrun with gag," he said.

Diver Terry England said the stock assessments never seem to be able to take account of natural cycles; they always seem to lag behind the curve of stock trends. "We can't make good decisions without good science," he said.

Roy Gibson, another diver, said he's disappointed that input from fishermen always seems to lack credibility in the eyes of federal fisheries scientists. "Any anecdotal evidence is immediately classified as a bald-ass lie," he said.

Mike Dunsizer, owner of Fisherman's Ideal Supply House in St. Petersburg, sells to both sectors. For years, he's heard them griping about each other, so he's glad to see cooperation. "We're both getting screwed," he said. John Cox, co-owner of Cox Seafood in Tarpon Springs, said the alliance is born of an unusual threat. "We haven't really had an attack or threat like this," he said.

O'Hern, in public comments to the group, probably spoke for every fisherman there, recreational or commercial. "We're all tired of seeing healthy fish populations and being told there's no fish," he said.

For Spaeth, who's been engaged in grouper-management trench warfare for years, it is gratifying to see consensus among industry leaders in both sectors. "We've been trying to fix this for years," he said. "We've never been able to fix anything divided."

Excitement was running high at the Island Way Grill, and frustration was showing at having Kenchington's concerns about the grouper stock assessment marginalized in the council's science committee. "They were hell-bent on defending their position at any cost," Spaeth told the group.

But weeks earlier Spaeth had laid out the partnership's strategy during a telephone interview. NMFS was not the enemy, Spaeth had said, but whatever was keeping federal managers from basing sound fisheries policy on accurate data - shrinking budgets, bureaucratic inertia, whatever - had to be fixed. "We don't believe the red snapper assessments, we don't believe goliath grouper, we don't believe tilefish," he said. "I don't blame NMFS or the agencies; whatever's binding them up" must be overcome. "We're going to have to go to the Hill and rectify it there."

With the birth of an umbrella organization that could unify thousands of commercial fishermen and hundreds of thousands of recreational fishermen in Florida - and perhaps beyond - Spaeth, O'Hern and their constituents are hoping they can get Congressional help.

Kenchington said he is optimistic. "If Denny and Bobby can hold it together and make it grow, it's going to be huge," Kenchington said. "The great thing with this partnership, we've got a power block," he told the group. "If this group holds together, there is real promise we can make this work for fishermen, for the marine ecosystem." One of the keys, Kenchington said in an interview later in the evening, will be for the group to be even-handed in its use of science when the data don't say what fishermen want to hear, when "the government says you can have more, but I say take less."

Spaeth and O'Hern have both publicly committed to that ideal. Just tell us the truth, they've said. "We don't want to crash the fishery," O'Hern said.

The political advantages of this kind of alliance seem obvious now, and O'Hern said he can't believe it took so long. "I'm stunned by that," he said. "It took us that long to figure that out?" But even now, not everyone thinks it's a good idea. Spaeth and O'Hern both have had to take flak from their own constituents. O'Hern tells critics this is about survival. "We're working with other people who fish," he said. "If you can't start standing up for common ground, it's going to go right out from under your feet." Spaeth agrees. "This is for all the marbles."

Article written by Hoyt Childers, Gulf and South Atlantic Bureau Chief of National Fisherman.

Our thanks to both Hoyt and the magazine for their kind permission to reprint it in full here.